Kosmos

Culture, travel, fashion and culinary delights: the Kosmos pages of Lufthansa Magazin bring you interesting and useful tidbits from around the world

Silent Retreat

Discover new countries? Fine. But discovering yourself is more interesting. How about a silent retreat at one of these monasteries or centers?

san francisco:SPIRITUAL SILENCE

Days spent only in silence, sitting, walking, breathing: Such retreats, mostly in the Buddhist Vipassana tradition, are available at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Beautifully situated north of San Francisco, it was founded by the famous U.S. meditation teacher Jack Kornfield.

würzburg: sit with the master

Willigis Jäger, Germany’s best-known Zen master, has converted a former monastery near Würzburg, into a meditation center, the Benediktushof. It offers Zen exercises alongside other practises, such as contemplation in the Christian tradition.

chiang mai: capital of silence

If you’re really serious about it, make the pilgrimage to Chiang Mai. The three-week beginners’ meditation course at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple is led by Buddhist monks. Thailand’s retreat hotspot also offers plenty of much shorter courses.

Send your best photo!

Like taking pictures related to flying? Send your best photo to LHmagazin@territory with “skyfie” in the subject line and every month, we’ll publish our favorite at Lufthansa Magazin and online at magazin.lufthansa.com

Colorful conversion

Where choirs rehearsed over a century ago in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the two artists who make up Studio Giftig were invited to apply spray paint to the antique moldings. The murals they created make the Thomas bar, restaurant and club a spectacular event setting.

Solar slug

He’s only five millimeters long and resembles a cartoon lamb, but costasiella kurshimae (leaf sheep) is smart. One of the few creatures capable of photosynthesis, it grazes on algae, for example, off the coast of Japan.